


somebody out there needs you

by feralphoenix



Series: you can only use your own [2]
Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Codependency, Disabled Character, Other, Puberty, Self-Harm, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-15
Updated: 2015-12-15
Packaged: 2018-05-06 21:21:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,642
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5431163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/feralphoenix/pseuds/feralphoenix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Things aren’t okay. You’re not okay. You don’t think you’ve ever been, and your baseline’s changed again, and you’re still trying to figure out where things stand. But you’re still here, somehow, and you have Asriel, and you don’t know why but Asgore and Toriel still tolerate your presence. There are days that—better is too strong a term, maybe, but they’re passable.</i>
</p><p>Or: Chara has a very bad week and makes a friend.</p>
            </blockquote>





	somebody out there needs you

**Author's Note:**

> _(while we live, we hold our heads high_ – Sometimes the sun sets  & things that shouldn’t be golden are golden.)
> 
>  
> 
> this story is set four years after [someone else's fire](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4920346).
> 
> warnings for stuff typical to discussion of chara: c-ptsd, depression, self-negativity, suicidal ideation, self-harm, abuse, codependent leanings, intrusive thoughts, disordered thinking, anxiety and anxiety attacks, etc.
> 
> warnings also for moderately graphic discussion of long-term illness (because buttercup poisoning is. awful & gross) and of menstruation.

You’re tired.

You’re always tired, now. Sometimes you doubt that there was ever a time when you were Not Tired, all the way back to when you were so small your memories go vague. But—there are different kinds of tiredness. The kind that comes from too many hours spent wary, straining your every sense for a threat, for footsteps, for cruel laughter. The existential kind, the weight in your mind that mutes all the good emotions and amplifies the bad.

And this kind of tiredness is different. You make an effort to get up and play with Asriel, to run around the castle like you used to, and shortness of breath steals up on you until you’re listing into walls, clutching vainly at your chest, wheezing, grimly certain that your lungs are about to start bubbling again. There was one time that Toriel made snail pie for the whole family, and you were relieved in a guilty way (always in a guilty way) to be sitting at that table because it meant you were Allowed To Have Real Food Again, and you missed eating that pie, even though you’d hated it at first. But halfway through your first slice you knew that something was Wrong and the cramps that came later made you cry.

(She was so angry at you for not speaking up, and the harsh lines of her made you cower and sob and you were trying so hard not to throw up that it was even harder to explain—that you’ve been ungrateful enough, you’ve caused her enough pain, this is your fault anyway, you just didn’t want to upset her, but you did _anyway_ because you’re a good-for-nothing and a failure and—

She softened then, and got down on her knees to be on eye level with you, and she apologized for raising her voice. You didn’t understand. You still don’t.)

There’s no rhyme or reason to the things that time has repaired and the things it hasn’t. Your lips, your mouth and throat all healed clean, but your palms are pitted with ugly white scars and your fingers are stiff and clumsy on your knitting needles even now, years later. Your stamina is gone, your stomach is too weak, there are streaks of white in your hair that you try to hide when you comb it. You still cower automatically whenever Toriel enters the room, because you expect her to strike you, even though she never has and your rational mind tells you she probably never will. You still can’t look Asgore in the face without dissolving into sobs.

It’s ridiculous. It’s senseless. You were so happy, once, to have this woman who taught you how to knit and made terrible jokes with you and didn’t frown when you got carried away and used your full vocabulary in casual conversation. To have this man be so kind and warm, and make you tea and give you chocolate, and make you feel at home in his arms when you never thought that was something you could have with an adult. And you ruined that, you put a knife in it and twisted and twisted and you didn’t even have the decency to die properly after all that.

They aren’t even angry with you anymore, if they ever truly were. Toriel mixes medicines for you every morning that keep the worst of the pain away, and Asgore holds you softly and never too tightly and lets you cry. It’s horrible. It’s fitting, too, that the poison and the pain only linger on in you. This is your fault. You did this. You deserve so much worse.

Every concession they still make for you hurts you, so badly. And there have been many, many concessions. The other child, chief among them. You were afraid that they would take them in as a replacement for your damaged and awful and disappointing self, because after the debilitating series of anxiety attacks you had when the news came that they fell—well. They all know, Toriel and Asgore too now instead of just Asriel, that you can’t be around other humans. You were sure that they would take the chance to get rid of you and put their hopes on worthier shoulders.

But they didn’t. They found a home for the other human child elsewhere, with the Royal Scientist, and they kept you. You’re still not sure why. Not to save face, surely. The whole underground must know by now what a disappointment you are, and yet the Dreemurrs continue to choose you, day after day. You don’t understand.

They love you, and it hurts, because you aren’t worthy of it.

Asriel, though.

Whenever your thoughts start to chase themselves in the old horrible rut and you start (resume, really) aching to die, he comes to interrupt you, shake you out of it. He always finds you. _Always._ You don’t know how he does it, but every time, there he is: Fitting his paw into your hand and kissing your cheek, rubbing his velvety nose against your skin.

He’s a little taller than you, now, and he has horns forming in itchy nubs on top of his head. (He can’t leave them alone—sometimes you just make him lay down in your lap so that you can scratch them for him with your blunter human fingers that won’t cut him open and he squirms and groans when you try to ease his itchiness and it does— _things_ —to you, fluttery heated things you don’t know what to do with.) The fur around his face is starting to get longer, the beginnings of a mane like his father’s. Sometimes when you’re very, very close, you can pick out strands of gold amongst the white, and it makes you feel a little better about the silver in your own hair.

It—makes a difference, somehow, that he stayed with you through your worst. That even when you were angry and blamed him for telling on you, he smiled and held you gently and said _I don’t want to let you go to someplace I can’t touch you anymore_ and _You’ve got to stay alive. You just have to, okay? You’re too important._

You’ll never forget it. Not for as long as you live. Those words have burned themselves into your heart. And here you are. Alive. Even on the days when you feel you’ve overstayed your welcome, when you look at yourself in the mirror with weird dull disbelief that you’re somehow still here, still Chara, four years longer than you ever thought you would be. Even when both kinds of exhaustion close in on you. Asriel, who knows how deep your badness runs, still thinks that your continued existence is valuable. It’s still tenuous, but you can curl up in his arms and feel safe for a little while, and he lets you play with his paw pads, and sometimes when he nuzzles your face like the big fuzzy goober he is, you fight down the nervousness that makes you timid and kiss him on the cheek in thanks.

Things aren’t okay. You’re not okay. You don’t think you’ve ever been, and your baseline’s changed again, and you’re still trying to figure out where things stand. But you’re still here, somehow, and you have Asriel, and you don’t know why but Asgore and Toriel still tolerate your presence. There are days that— _better_ is too strong a term, maybe, but they’re passable.

You don’t always know what’s best for yourself. Or for others. You take the pain that never quite goes away, the weak lungs and weaker stomach, the stiffness in your hands, the white streaks in your hair. The fear. The guilt. And you take the lesson. You try to reconcile these things. You try to carry them. It’s easier some days than others.

But the anniversary of your fall, that rainy day in September, the first time you tried to kill yourself and failed—it’s come and gone four times already. Asgore and Toriel and Asriel and the monsters you know, they all celebrate it, because you have no birthday to mark the time with. And the way they do it is—not a birth, but a rebirth. Like—isn’t it good, that you failed, that you’re still here. This is the day you began again. Each year you cry because—you don’t know, really. A little because no one has ever cared enough to do this for you before. A little, too, because you can’t think like that yet, but… you want to be able to.

As long as you have Asriel’s hand in yours, you think that somehow—you may yet manage.

 

 

This day begins, like so many do, with pain.

It’s in your back this time, like it’s been for the past few days, but it’s more concentrated and awful and even before your mind’s really fully aware of what’s going on around you, you’re trying to categorize it. A stabbing and an ache. Diffuse and general, maybe like you’ve been sitting wrong, but you’ve been trying to be careful about your posture lately because your lungs and your stomach don’t like it when you slouch. The extra weight that’s been sitting on your chest for at least a year now doesn’t help, but you do try.

Your stomach hurts too, or a little lower, and that, now, you _really_ don’t like that. It’s not—it’s not the screaming horror of blisters in your intestines, but hurting there at all is cold knives sliding in through your ribs to steal your breath away.

The other discomforts are—minor. The sense of wrongness in your knees and your wrists is mild, today. You can breathe all right, but your hands are prickling a little, that annoying overstimulated-nerve sensation that you just have to wait out. There’s something else wrong, too, you’re pretty sure, but it’s not immediate pain so you try to tune it out.

You sigh. You wonder, some, if you’ll be doing this inventory of little hurts every morning for the rest of your life. Probably you will. It’s the price you pay for the strength of your human soul. Everything just lingers on and on in your solid body. There is no cure. Accept it. You deserve this.

“Chara?”

And—there he is. Your prince, come to save you, so automatic that you doubt he even knows he’s doing it. Dutiful, you crack your eyes open to look for him.

He’s already up, and—in the middle of changing clothes, you note, and you can _feel_ your face turning red and it’s awful, you feel so exposed (even though he _has_ to notice he doesn’t say anything—you love him; you think that and then you think _oh god,_ you’re just digging yourself deeper, you’re an embarrassment, is what you are). He pulls his sweater down and reaches over to the dresser, behind the family photo that you still tilt so that you can look at it, as a reminder.

When Asriel sits down on the edge of your mattress he’s got a glass of water in one hand and a folded tissue in the other. Pills today, and paper squares of powder. You edge yourself up onto your elbows, leaning on your pillow.

“Medicine first,” Asriel says. You flex your hands a little, open up the tissue and take the glass in shaky fingers and get the powder over with first. Back when Toriel started putting you on this, you had to mix it with the water; you can just pour it into your mouth and wash it down nowadays. It’s gross either way, but taking it dry gets it over with quicker.

The pills, you stare at for a moment before you pick them up. You _could_ just tuck them under your tongue and pretend to take them. Asriel and Asgore have both caught you “forgetting” your medication in the past, which is why Asriel helping you take it has turned into part of the morning routine; if you want to skip out on it these days you have to be sneaky about it. You’re pretty sure Asriel knows that there are still days you fake taking your meds. It’s in the way he looks at you, golden-brown eyes soft and worried, and it—it hurts, in a way you deserve. He doesn’t really get it, why sometimes you need to.

But that’s because Asriel is—good. He’s good, in ways that you aren’t. He wants you to be okay, even if you don’t deserve to be.

“Chara, c’mon,” he says, and his voice is so, so gentle, and you kind of hate it. He acts older than a fourteen-year-old kid. You act older than a fourteen-year-old kid too, but that’s different, that’s just how it is, how you are. Asriel—you did this to him.

You don’t want to take the stupid pills, but your back is really really bothering you the more awake you feel, and you can tell that it’s going to get in the way of getting around at all today if you don’t take steps to ease it now. So you shove the pills in your mouth, and wash them down instead of dry-swallowing because you might as well as long as you’re being weak.

You wipe your mouth on the sleeve of your pajama shirt. You’re so tired. Asriel side-eyes the door not even remotely surreptitiously, and leans down to press his mouth to yours.

He’s soft. He’s so soft and warm. You reach up to touch his cheek for just a moment before he pulls away, and for that moment you forget all about deserving the pain you’re in.

“I think we’re supposed to have guests today,” he says, still close enough to make you giddy, reaching up to toy with his locket between two claws. “Dr. Gaster, and… I don’t know if he’s going to bring them with, but maybe you should get dressed and get some things to do so that we can sneak out and not have to deal with them?”

“Yeah,” you say. There’s pain you deserve and then there’s pain you don’t deserve. Have never deserved.

You push yourself further up until you’re sitting, really making an effort, and Asriel smiles, and you want to—you don’t know what you want to. Wrap yourself around him like ivy, maybe, or tear him to pieces. You still want to be his heart, safe and dormant and constant in his chest, but. You’ve since come to consider just how much you like him to hold you and weave his thick furry fingers through yours and smile at you.

“Okay,” Asriel says. “I’ll let Mom and Dad know we’re going to be hiding.”

He gets up. You sigh a little to have him leave your side, but—enough. You don’t need to have Asriel hold your hand every waking moment.

It’s when you shift in preparation for swinging your legs over the side of the mattress that that sense of wrongness falls into place. The sheets underneath you are wet.

Asriel’s back is turned, so he misses your frown and gives you time to school your expression back into neutrality. “Go ahead,” you tell him instead. “I have to change and I want to clean up a little, before I forget.”

“Okay,” Asriel says, and he smiles to you and leaves the room then, closing the door behind him with a soft click.

You boil up out of the bed and fling the sheets back as quietly as you can manage with your shaking hands.

There: In the middle of the comforter, there’s a dark red blotch a little smaller than your palm. You touch it with one fingertip. It’s wet. It’s still warm.

You take a very deep breath, count to five, and exhale slowly. There’s no need to panic. You slide your pajama pants off, chew on your lip as you inspect them. The crotch and the backside are bloody, too. Your underwear is worse. You feel cold, distant. There’s dark smears of blood high on the insides of your thighs.

This is. Bad. This is very very bad. It wasn’t until the end that you actually started pissing blood, and you’re—bleeding, actively, it’s wet and sticky and horrible and you’re _not going to scream_ because this is not a situation that hysterics are going to help.

They’re already bloody anyway, who cares, so you wipe the blood off your legs with your clothes. You strip the sheets off the bed, then the padding underneath them when you find spots of dark red there too. You can just put them with the laundry all balled up so that nobody suspects. Nothing will show up if you wear black pants today. This is fine, you’re fine, you’re not panicking and everything is definitely under control. Your body’s just—weird now, this is how you are, and if this is just some new way your damage has decided to manifest, well, fine. You can handle it. You _can._

Maybe it will even stop on its own if you just—leave it alone. You rub your upper arms against old memories. Don’t be a fucking hypochondriac, Chara. Begging for attention like this will just get them angry at you, and you don’t want that. Deal with it on your own. They never have to know.

You slap your face as hard as you can. Blink rapidly. You’re fine.

Replacing the bedsheets is mechanical and weirdly soothing. Mentally you’re a million miles away, adrenaline turning your veins into highways of coursing stardust.

(You remember, briefly, incongruently, looking out an airplane window when you were very little and being flown halfway across the country because your p—because _they_ wanted to present you to the rest of _their_ accursed family. Your skin crawls with the vivid sense memory of that awful itchy frilly dress they’d forced you into, the almost-too-small patent leather shoes that pinched your toes.—What the _fuck,_ Chara. You were like three or four years old then, how is your brain digging this up. Anyway. The point is, the _point_ is that you were in the window seat and you looked outside and it was night and beneath you the earth was teeming with strings of light. That’s you, right now, your arteries and veins are a map of pale fire.

Your wrists itch. Horribly. You want to get something sharp, open them up, see if light pours out or just more blood.

Stop. Stop. You slap yourself again. Enough of this. You’re Chara of the underground, you’re fourteen, your best—your boy—your—Asriel, Asriel is going to worry if you take too long and the list of things you _do not want_ is currently topped by him walking in on you with no pants on dripping blood because why, _why,_ can you not hold it. What is _wrong_ with you. Are you losing control of basic bodily functions along with your fucking mind.

God, you want to stop. You’re exhausted.)

Your hands keep working while your brain spins its wheels uselessly, which is good because as soon as you’re done that lets you bolt for the drawers to fish fresh underwear and pants out and put them on. And—you open the bureau too, breathe in cedar-smell and fabric softener-smell for one blessed moment before yanking a sweater off its hanger at random. They’re all still both of yours, even if Asriel is getting a little taller than you.

The locket is last. Its weight on your chest calms you, somewhat.

You’re fine. You have a plan and you’re fine. Now all that’s left is to monitor your own condition and see where this goes. It’s probably nothing. It’ll probably go away on its own in a couple hours, and won’t you feel like an idiot for panicking then.

 

 

You fidget through breakfast because the anxiety’s so overpowering you can’t control yourself. Asgore and Toriel and Asriel all must put it down to wanting to be up and out before Gaster and his human charge get here, because none of them comment. Asgore has made fried sugary toast and he even lets you put chocolate syrup on yours, but you can barely finish it. You’re too preoccupied with whether you’re leaving blood marks on the chair beneath you, and both the ache low down in your belly and the fire in your back have returned full force.

“Drink your juice before you leave,” Toriel says, and her tone of voice is mild but your hands still shake as you obey. “Where will you two be today, if we need to find you?”

“The garden, I think,” Asriel replies, and yes, all right, that’s where you want to be so that you can sit down against a non-white surface, but both Toriel and Asgore’s faces go tight with—wariness you think, and fearful fireworks go off in your stomach until he goes on, “It’s okay, I’ll be with Chara, so we’ll be fine. We’ll have our phones on us and everything.”

The tension in his parents’ faces doesn’t soften—you _did_ make him your accomplice, you lost him their trust, you did, you did—but he goes on scarfing the rest of his breakfast down in total unconcern and then offers you his hand.

“Come on, Chara,” he says, and you—reach out and take it, more for the comfort than anything else, though it’s good to have the physical support as you stand. (You’re slow, eyeing the seat of the chair suspiciously from the corner of your eye, shaking a little in relief when you don’t spy any blood there.)

Asriel has his notebooks. You, with your mind all taken up by a scream trying to claw its way out of you, didn’t think to bring anything at all, but you have him and his imagination, and that’s usually enough to keep you entertained. You squeeze his hand and let him lead you through the hall, over the battlements, into the garden.

“We should just—sit down somewhere,” you say, and Asriel nods peaceably and you lower yourselves to the ground together with your backs up against Asgore’s throne.

“Are you okay?” he asks you as you lean into the warmth of him.

“Medicine’s taking a little to kick in,” is all you say. “I’ll be fine when it does. Could you read to me ‘til then, maybe?”

“Sure,” he replies, and he wraps his right arm around your shoulders, setting his notebook on his tented knees and thumbing through it with his left hand. “I wrote more of the last one after you went to bed last night. Wanna hear it?”

You do, kind of, because Asriel’s been getting better at the whole writing thing and he’s managed to come up with some really really good plot twists lately, but—“Not yet,” you say. “I want to make sure I can pay attention and actually appreciate it when I listen. Read me one of the old ones.”

“Okay,” he says, and he leans in to nuzzle at your temple. Something soft and light swells up in you at the physical affection, and for a second you’re flying, you’re not bound to this awful useless body, you’re free and nothing hurts. “Have you got any you want to hear, or…?”

You press your face against his side and close your eyes. “Surprise me,” you say.

“Hmm,” Asriel says, and you grin because he’s putting real thought into it, so now you’re left wondering which one he’s actually going to pick. One of the funny ones, or something so old and embarrassing that you can both laugh at it, or one that’s newer and that you told him you liked. “Hmmmmm. Got one.”

“Don’t keep me in suspense, Ree,” you tell him, still grinning.

“Okay, okay,” he replies. His laugh is so gentle. You wind your hands into his shirt and breathe. Flower-smell, earth-smell, sweater-smell, and underneath it all, Asriel: Sweet fur and the same warmth as sunshine. “Once upon a time, there was a monster more powerful than any other in the underground, and they called him the Ultimate God of Hyperdeath, and there was a human who was smarter and kinder than any other human, and they were the Ultimate God of Hyperdeath’s best friend.”

It’s an old _er_ one, which you classify because you didn’t break Asriel of starting his stories with _once upon a time_ until just this year, but you’re in it (as much as Asriel still tries to swear up and down that the nameless human definitely isn’t you) so it can’t be too old. He writes you into his stories like you belong there, and it’s so absurd that you could laugh, but actually it’s kind of sweet—even when he was just writing awful stories about how invincible and cool the Ultimate God of Hyperdeath is and had the human getting kidnapped by faceless bad guys left and right, the human always managed to rescue themself and often arrived in the nick of time to save the Ultimate God of Hyperdeath from deadly danger.

And the thing is, you started being a feature in his stories _after_ your messy suicide attempt. After he already knew you’d stood by and watched and let him make a mistake that nearly killed his father because you were only thinking of yourself, after you dragged him into helping you poison yourself, after you manipulated him and were horribly disgustingly sick for ages and blew up at him about how much you wanted to just die. You have no idea how he manages to still look at you like this, but he does. His power fantasies are honest and innocent and you’re the resourceful sidekick in them, you’re the desirable love interest, you’re someone his superpowered character trusts to always always have his back no matter what.

You let the words blur together and just concentrate on the sound of Asriel’s voice. He’s good at reading out loud, good at talking in general—he doesn’t sound like he’s just reciting words off a page, but like he’s excited about his own story. He gets enthusiastic at the action-y parts and soft during the sad ones, and he sort-of-kind-of voice acts the dialogue, and it always sounds natural.

His voice has gotten deeper lately. It’s not as soft and squeaky and cute as it used to be, but it’s still gentle and soothing in between its occasional booms and cracks. Almost more endearing for them, too. It’ll get deeper yet, if Asgore’s voice is any indication. You wonder what he’s going to sound like, when he’s older. You—want to be able to hear it. You don’t know if that’s something that’s all right for you to want.

These uneasy thoughts bring you back out of the peaceful near-doze Asriel’s voice had lulled you into, and you’re grounded again—not in the good way, how Asriel brings you back from awful things with his touch, but stuck inside your body, pain flaring up through your lower back and gross sticky wetness still seeping through the seat of your pants.

You don’t mean to hiss aloud, but you guess you must, because Asriel cuts himself off mid-sentence. “Chara? You doing okay?”

“Back hurts,” you manage. “Could you just—” you slap at the small of your back a little, where the spine curves “—put your hand here, for a while.”

“Okay,” he replies, bemused. The warm hand slides from your shoulder to right over where it hurts the most, and Asriel kneads the spot lightly. You shudder and sigh, relaxing into his touch. “Is this any better?”

“Yeah,” you say, because it is; the heat of his palm is seeping in through your skin and that plus the kneading is taking the edge off.

There’s quiet for a while, aside from the distant birdsong that echoes in from outside.

“You know,” Asriel says, and then he stops himself. A pause. He goes on, resolute: “It’s—it’s kind of unusual for Mom’s medicine to take this long to kick in.”

Indignation pricks you a little, but you guess you have no one to blame here but yourself. You wait for a moment, weighing your words. “If I hadn’t taken it, do you really think I’d complain about it?”

“Hm,” Asriel says. “Maybe not. But I think you should talk to her about it later.”

The urge to giggle bubbles up in you at such a hopeless suggestion. You try to batten it down, but the seeping sensation of blood between your legs chisels away at your resolve, and a little bit of laughter escapes.

Asriel makes a face. He closes his notebook, sets it on the ground beside him, and swings his left arm up to hug you around your front. You bring your hands up to rest against it, listless.

“Chara,” he says, soft, so soft—“why are you crying?”

“I—what,” you say. “I’m not.”

“You’re so bad at lying sometimes,” he says. He touches your wet cheek with the tip of his soft nose, and you hate it, you hate him and how perceptive he’s gotten to be and everything, except that instead of growling at him you collapse into the tender gesture instead. Stupid pathetic weak. You want to shove him off you, but you want to yank him in closer too, stitch yourself to his side so that you’ll never ever be apart again. “Chara, c’mon. Tell me what’s wrong.”

You absolutely cannot tell him. You’ll die. But your pulse is an angry hummingbird in your wrists and your throat, and you’re pulling in air too fast, and it’s been hours since you woke up and you’re still bleeding steadily and Asriel’s not reading to you to distract you anymore. It’s not stopping, it’s not stopping and whatever grace was granted to you to let you keep living these four years has run out, your time’s up, you’re going to die. You’re ten and emaciated and sweaty and lying in bed, again, your mouth and your nose and your nails are caked with blood and you’ve been pissing blood and shitting blood and your insides are on fire and you’re tired, you’re tired, you’re so fucking tired, grim determination and old cold hatred are all that keep you from buckling under Asriel’s _maybe we should stop_ s.

“Chara,” Asriel is calling you from a long ways away. He shakes you. “Chara, hey, I’ll start counting, breathe with me.”

“Ree,” you croak.

“Yeah. It’s me, it’s your best friend, I’m right here. I’ve got you. Down from seven, come on, follow along.”

And you obey, because it’s Asriel, because despite everything you trust him. You exhale, inhale, exhale again. He rubs your achy back in circles, presses his claws into your shoulder briefly. All the little things to tell you that you’re here, you’re all right.

But you’re not all right. You’re not. You sniffle, a little.

“You want to go get Dad instead of Mom?”

“No, I—” You chew on your lip, squeeze your eyes shut. You hate this, so much. “Toriel knows more about—about healing. I should talk to her.”

When you open your eyes again, Asriel’s face is close. His eyes are serious. You can pick out the gold in his fur, this close, and even though his horns are still nubs and his face is still round and soft, it’s bizarrely easy to imagine the king he might grow up to be.

“Okay,” he says. “We’ll head to the house and then I’ll call to let her know we need her. I can carry you, if—”

 _“No,”_ you blurt, heat creeping into your face. Asriel jerks back, round-eyed with alarm, and you feel completely rotten. Deep breaths. Control yourself. God. “No, it’s—I’m—you shouldn’t. I’m. I’m bleeding and I don’t want to get you all gross.”

It comes out in a mumble, and Asriel cocks his head at you, perplexed. Sometimes it’s irritating when he can’t put two and two together, but you could kiss him for it right now.

“Do you think you can walk on your own?” he asks.

You think about heading back into New Home on your own two feet and curl a little more tightly into yourself. The flaring in your back is awful awful awful and you don’t trust your knees, the way they seem to pulse in time with the pounding in your belly. You think, too, about just sitting here amongst the flowers and waiting for Toriel to come find you. Shudder. No.

So you look at Asriel again: Sweet, sturdy, steadfast Asriel.

“If you help me,” you say, staring at him steadily.

He takes a deep breath and nods. He unfolds his arms from around you, gets up to his full height, and holds his hands out for you to lever yourself up with.

You rise. Slowly and gingerly. There’s the—feeling but not the sound of something wet and squelchy, and you cringe, but Asriel doesn’t pick up on it. Maybe it’s just in your head.

Asriel ducks his head and slides your arm over his shoulders, fastens his own hand underneath your opposite arm. “This okay?”

You tighten your fist in the fabric of his sweater. “I. Yes.”

He smiles, or attempts to. “Okay,” he says. “Let’s go.”

 

 

If you don’t stop chewing your lip it’s going to wind up bleeding too, but the alternative is to let yourself flinch away from Toriel’s great paws as she examines you, so you can’t. Her expression is neutral, professional, and whenever she touches you she does it as softly as possible. It’s all that keeps you steady against the mantra of _run away run away for fuck’s sake run away_ battering against the inside of your skull.

You remind yourself, again, that you consented to this. That you can deal with a little manhandling from Toriel even though you’re wary (wary, not terrified) of her, if the alternative is anxiety and sickness and relapses and dying. But now that you’re actually standing in your room and letting her examine you, the corner of you that’s shrieking _run away_ isn’t convinced.

Asriel’s waiting outside, because his mother’s had you strip down to your underwear and you don’t really want him looking at you like this, and she wants him to respect your privacy. Asgore is still entertaining Gaster.

(You try not to wonder if the human is here with him in the house, because if you dwell on that you’re going to want to run crying out of New Home and hide where nobody can find you until you’re bleached bones and nothingness.)

Anyway, you don’t know how much they’ve told Asgore yet. Maybe nothing—you may not get _why,_ after what you did, but if he knew you’re relapsing to some of your worst poisoning symptoms he’d want to be at your side. He does care about you. This is something you know.

“When did this begin, my child?” Toriel asks you softly.

You scrub your face, resist the urge to slap your cheeks because you know she doesn’t like it when you ground yourself with pain. “This—morning. Or last night or something, I didn’t notice until I woke up. I’m,” and you make yourself raise your head to meet her eyes, “I’m sorry about the—the sheets.”

“It is all right,” she says, holding your hands in her large ones, smiling. “They can always be washed. I am glad that you trusted Asriel and agreed to confide in me in the end, Chara; your well-being is what is most important.”

You hold her gaze for a moment more, then let your chin drop guiltily. Once upon a time you loved talking to Toriel, she was the easiest to look at in the whole family, because the maroon of her eyes is so close to the red of your own, and that meant you could trust her not to hit you for staring and call you a freak. Now you can’t meet her eyes anymore without remembering the barely-restrained fury you saw in them, when she opened your door and confronted you about what you’d done to yourself and her husband and her son.

Stop. Stop. Don’t give yourself an anxiety attack _now._ Idiot. You breathe in, lift your hands away from Toriel’s. Cross your arms over your breasts to rub your upper arms, pinch yourself a little surreptitiously.

“Chara,” Toriel says, and the reproach in her voice is gentle but your spine turns to ice to hear it. She untangles your arms and holds your hands again, to still them. Your fingers need something to worry, though, or you’ll—you don’t know what you’ll.

“Sorry,” you mumble. “Sorry, sorry, sorry.”

“I need one hand free to examine you, my dear,” she goes on, “but if you need a texture to occupy yourself, you may use my pads if you would like.”

“If it’s—okay,” you say, trying to avoid looking at her as best you can without actually tilting your head away.

“Of course it is,” she answers readily. Not even a mote of frustration in her voice. If she’s irritated at having to reassure you like this, she’s hiding it very, very well.

You let go of her right hand, lifting the fingers of your left to pick at your locket. Even with her permission, you keep your own right hand mostly still on the palm of her left, just moving the very tip of your pointer finger up and down and trying to absorb yourself in the grooves beneath it.

Toriel, meanwhile, rests her hand over your stomach in silence. At length: “The abdominal pain is coming from this general area?”

Breathe in. Breathe out. Don’t panic. Words are—you don’t trust yourself with them, so you make a low hum of assent instead.

“Chara,” she says, and you look up—not enough to meet her eyes but enough to sort of stare at her chest, which is close enough, probably, maybe. “Your bleeding isn’t coming from your digestive tract or kidneys.” You start to tilt your head, and she goes on, “You are not passing blood in your urine, my dear. The inside of your womb is bleeding.”

Your ears—ring, for just a second, and you have to shake your head. “My,” you start, and it comes out crackly so you swallow and try again. “My what. I’m what.”

“I do not know why, or how you could have harmed yourself in this manner,” she goes on.

You drop her hand like it’s hot metal. “I didn’t,” you say, but it comes out strangled.

Toriel breathes in, closes her eyes. “Oh. I apologize. That was a poor choice of words on my part. I do not know how you could have sustained harm like this—is that a little better?” You don’t answer her, and her mouth flattens out into a worried line for a moment. “My knowledge of human reproductive biology is… limited. Your physiology is different from ours. This is your future we are handling here, Chara, so I think it best to tread lightly until I have a better understanding of what I am about.”

You narrow your eyes and breathe out, like _hhhhh._ “I don’t care,” you say low and rebellious, forgetting yourself. “It’s not like I’m ever going to want to have kids.”

“That is perfectly fine,” Toriel tells you, half-smiling, and you hope it’s your attitude that’s amusing her and not your stance on babies because you will _scream_ if she doesn’t take you seriously. “But I would still rather you have the option if you ever experience a change of heart, and I do not want to cause you any more serious harm. It may yet cease on its own soon—human wounds close quickly enough—but I will still look into some potential healing spells, as well as general painkillers that will not interfere with your other medication.”

She sounds calm still, but you have to cross your arms with all your strength to keep yourself from shaking. Sure, okay, it’s not a relapse, whatever, it’s just some weird and horrible _new_ health issue that your awful piece of shit body has decided to throw at you. God, you’re so tired of all this.

“It will be all right,” Toriel says firmly. “I will clean the dirty laundry for now; put on clean clothes and try to rest for the time being.”

You wish you could just—believe her and leave it at that. “Okay,” you say, and you avoid looking at your bed because you don’t want to think of lying there turning the sheets red underneath you anymore. “Um—thanks. And. I’m sorry.”

“There is nothing you need to apologize for, my child,” she tells you, and she leans in very very briefly so that her nose brushes against the tip of yours, then pulls away from you immediately so you aren’t panicked by the closeness. It’s—it’s a sweet gesture, and you remember being smaller, before all the bad things, and bursting with warmth when she nuzzled your forehead. Your eyes fill, and you try to blink it away, because—enough. Enough. There’s no one to blame here but you, no one, no one.

Toriel is still watching you, you realize, and you turn your head to try to conceal your expression, too late though it might be.

“I will let Asriel back in when you are dressed,” she says to you, and if that’s—pity or sympathy in her voice you can’t tell, but it’s as uncomfortable as gooseflesh in hard-to-reach places and it makes you even more miserable. “I am sure having his company will help.”

Words have abandoned you again, so you just nod, and go to the closet for a new pair of clean pants.

 

 

It doesn’t stop. It doesn’t get better. You bleed more the next day, and more the day after that, and the pain gets worse and worse until literally all you can do is curl up in bed and hope that if this is killing you it’ll have the decency to do so quickly.

Asriel stays at your side most of the time, plying you with distraction after distraction—editing his stories, going back through old home movies, quizzing you on ancient runes—and that helps, a little, even though there’s not really any escaping from the reality of blood and being unable to move.

You get confused about when you are, unless you can look closely at Asriel for a while or think to look at how your own body has changed. Because the room has stayed almost exactly the same since you were kids. You wish you could get up and leave without making a mess, but even lying still hurts so goddamn much, and Toriel doesn’t want you pushing yourself. You can’t complain. You can’t complain because you’re causing enough trouble already, and because it will just upset them to say how much lying here feels like dying slowly.

So you lose blood, and you lose more blood, and Toriel comes to cast magic on you and she frowns when nothing seems to take. There’s no nausea, no blistering, just blood and pain and a growing certainty that this is it.

You hear her talking to Asgore once, outside the bedroom door when they must think you’ve already gone to sleep, and though you can’t catch everything she says, you do distinctly hear her express regret that your stomach is so weak. You’ll develop anemia like this, and her with no way to make sure you’re getting enough iron because you can’t eat her snails anymore.

You turn onto your side and try to stifle the giggles in your sleeve.

(Asriel, reading by lamplight on the other side of the room, dogears his page and comes over to your bed—he tries to lift the comforter like he wants to crawl in with you, and you can only stop him by holding it down with both arms and protesting that he Doesn’t want to be with you while you’re this gross. He shrugs like you have a point, and then lies down on top of the covers instead, a warm comforting weight that you don’t deserve. You whisper like you did when you were kids, and you tickle his ears when he tries to play with your hair, and it would almost, almost be all right if you weren’t in so much damn pain.)

The fourth day of blood, you’re sitting hunched over at the table with Asgore while Toriel washes the linens yet again. He’s made tea for you, the really good stuff—something something oolong, you think, the names blur together sometimes but the taste is what matters—and he’s set a platter of chocolate cookies out for you. Most of them are… already gone, because you’re ravenous. Both he and Toriel have made hopeful remarks about your retaining your appetite, but their cheer rings false to you.

“Toriel and I have been talking,” Asgore says, and you set your teacup down so that you can pay attention to him properly. “We believe that it may be time to have someone more… familiar with human biology have a look at you, if you are willing.”

“I guess that depends on who,” you say, picking at your sleeve.

“We’re considering Dr. Gaster,” he replies, straight away. You’re glad that he doesn’t want to keep you in suspense. “He is not quite the healer that Tori is, but he has a bit more knowledge of humans than we do.”

You shrug. At least you know him, a little. “Might as well try. He does take care of—the other one.”

Asgore is silent for a moment—maybe surprised that you’re bringing the other human child up of your own will. You’re surprised at yourself too, a little. But you’re also tired, and tired of being sick, and the tea and cookies are really all that are keeping you from crying.

“We can contact him and see if he can pay a visit as early as this evening, if you would like,” he says.

You shrug again and curl up on the chair. You think about getting used to all the blood, the same way you’ve adjusted to your weak stomach and lungs, and you wish you had something sharp. Pain coils up in your back, and you hiss.

“Would you like to return to your room now?” Asgore asks, gentle.

Just thinking about it makes you shudder. “I’ll—” You hunch your shoulders, make a face. “I’ll clean up, so… let me stay out here for a while longer?”

He shifts, and in your peripheral vision you see him extend one heavy paw across the table to you, holding it next to you. You lean into it, closing your eyes.

“Of course you may,” Asgore says. His voice is a little choked, and you press yourself harder into his hand as if its warmth will drown out the sound of his worry. There are times when you’re glad his emotions are easier to read than Toriel’s, but this isn’t one of them. You’re so tired. Being afraid makes you even more tired.

You stay like this with him until Toriel comes into the kitchen to scold him for making you sit up for so long, and back to the bedroom you go. Asriel has lessons today, so you’re left alone with your sketchbook and the colored pencils. You outline golden flowers morosely until your hands start to ache.

 

 

You’ve never seen Dr. Gaster wearing anything other than a lab coat, and that’s what he’s got on as he stands in your bedroom: A tall skeleton in black and white with a face that’s—tired, kindly, you suppose, inasmuch as he has a face at all. His smooth skull is difficult for you to read, and it makes you wary (not nervous, of course not nervous). His hands are long and elegant and your eyes are always drawn to them. Asgore is with the two of you, and Toriel is off keeping Asriel occupied, you suppose. Even if you hadn’t wanted at least one of the Dreemurrs here with you while you deal with a relatively unfamiliar adult, you would have needed him or Toriel here to translate. Your knowledge of sign language barely extends beyond the alphabet.

“Do I need to take anything off,” you say, regarding the doctor from the corner of your eye as you sit curled up atop your mattress.

He shakes his head and begins to sign. You try to keep up with the motions, but you don’t recognize most of what he’s trying to say, so you give up halfway and look to Asgore instead.

“No, you may keep your clothes on if you are more comfortable that way,” Asgore translates.

You nod, because getting mostly naked in front of Toriel or Asgore is one thing, but you definitely don’t like the idea of having to do so for someone you don’t know very well.

Gaster smiles. He looks patient—maybe—you think, but maybe you’re just being hopeful. This time when he signs, you don’t bother really trying to puzzle his words out; you just look to Asgore and watch him watch Gaster until he’s through.

“Come down off the bed, Chara,” Asgore says. “He would like to examine you now.”

Your ankles and your hips sort of—not _creak_ but definitely protest when you set your weight on your feet, and you make a face, but you obey.

Gaster looks down at you; you look up at him. He lifts his right hand, points at your waist, and tilts his palm upwards, flicking his fingers upward as if to mime something being raised.

“You want me to lift my shirt up?” you guess. He smiles, nods, folds his hands neatly together at his middle. You glance once at Asgore, who does not prompt you one way or the other; it’s up to you, you suppose. Take a deep breath. Let it out. You fold your fingers around the hem of your sweater and pick it up enough to expose a couple inches of flesh. “Is this enough?”

Gaster nods. He takes a step towards you—extends a hand towards your skin, and waits like he expects you to shy away or yank your shirt back down. It’s at least nice that he wants to be sure you’re okay with this, you guess.

“Go ahead,” you say, and he inclines his head before resting his hands on either side of your hips and probing with his fingers.

You don’t gasp and yelp and jump away, but it’s a near thing because his hands are _cold_ and it’s uncomfortable as all hell to endure your organs getting prodded with stiff bones. The doctor’s polite about it, and if you so much as start to cringe he eases up the pressure. And—if not for the context and your unfamiliarity with each other, maybe it’d be nice to have his fingertips kneading your back, because the cool feel of his hands actually eases the pain a little, just like Asriel’s warm paws do.

It takes several minutes for Gaster to be satisfied, and then he steps away, motioning downwards with his fingertips. You release your shirt, letting it fall back down over your stomach.

The doctor begins to sign rapidly, more to Asgore than to you, and you stare at the king’s profile, at his serious expression, with your insides starting to churn. Asgore does not translate along with Gaster’s signs. Maybe he’s just waiting for his friend to finish, but you don’t have the patience for this, and you clench your fists hard to keep from speaking out of turn.

Finally—it feels like at least ten minutes have passed, though surely your anxiety is interfering with your sense of time—Asgore notices you staring and begins to speak. “Ah. There is—no sign of any physical injury,” he says to you. “Inflammation and swelling, he says, but nothing to indicate an open wound.”

That doesn’t make sense. Why are you bleeding if there isn’t a wound, somewhere. But Gaster’s skull is arranged in a vaguely apologetic expression, and Asgore trusted him enough to ask him to examine you, so there must be—there must be _something._

So you reach out and grab Gaster’s sleeve, tugging. He startles and peers down at you, the pale lights in his eye sockets unwavering.

“Then what’s—” Your voice is trembling. You can’t do this. You raise your fist instead, and finger-spell it out, shaking with—anger. Yes. Anger.

_W-H-A-T-S W-R-O-N-G W-I-T-H M-E_

Gaster’s hands are quiet and still for a long while as you look up at him, that awful shuddery feeling coiling in your guts, and your face feels hot but the steady crawling feeling of blood seeping into your clothes demands that you not back down from this confrontation.

The elegant fingers weave in the air.

“I cannot say with certainty,” Asgore translates, from outside your field of vision. “I must consult my literature and perform a few more examinations before I can say for sure.”

_L-I-A-R_

“Chara,” Asgore says, not sharp at all but still reproachful, and you recoil automatically, dropping Gaster’s arm.

Gaster holds up his hands, palms-out, and shakes his head. You draw in a ragged breath, then exhale.

“I’m going to—go,” you mumble, rocking your weight from your toes to your heels and back, as if that’s any better for your achy knees than locking them. “I can’t stand being in this room. I’m—sorry. I’m just.” And you turn around and duck out the door before either of them can try to catch you.

Between your lowered head and the tears you’re trying to contain, you suppose you never had any hope of avoiding Asriel, and you bump right into the solid furry warmth of him as you hit the end of the hall: “Oh!” he says out loud, and he wraps you up in both arms when your stupid shaky legs buckle, keeping you upright. “Chara, what’s the matter?”

“I can’t—” Hot sticky horrible blood scrapes the inside of your leg, and you try to make yourself let go of Asriel’s front but just end up clenching and unclenching your fists on his sweater instead. “I have to, I can’t stay here, I’ve got to—get out. I can’t take being cooped up here. I can’t. I can’t _breathe,_ Ree. I can’t remember when this is anymore. I’m dying and I’m awful and I—I need air.”

“Chara,” Asriel says, and his voice is urgent and firm, so you raise your chin to look at his face. His right arm stays fastened around your waist, but he lifts his left hand to card his claws through your hair, and you shudder and melt into the touch. He’s the only one you’ll let caress you like this. The only one. “Do you promise you’ll stay in the city?”

You push your cheek into his hand, close your eyes. “I don’t think I could go further by myself. I—I promise, okay.”

“Take your phone,” he says. “I’ll make excuses to Mom and Dad, I know you haven’t been taking it that well being stuck inside. Swear you’ll call me if you need me, though. I’ll be right there.”

“I promise,” you say again, and you take his face between your hands to kiss him once, hard and brief. He trusts you. Despite everything. It’s your lifeline.

Asriel holds you close for a few moments more, so tight that you can feel his heart beating just above and to the right of yours. “Okay,” he says at last, pulling back to bump his forehead against yours. “Get your phone and hurry. Come back soon, or call me and I’ll come get you.”

“Right,” you say, and ease yourself back by inches. “Thank you.”

You pick your phone off the table in the entryway, cram it into your pants pocket, and duck through the door as quietly as you can. You don’t even look where you’re going; you just run headlong through the castle, following your own trembling legs wherever they’ll take you.

 

 

The ground is hard and cold beneath you, but it’s quiet here.

You aren’t sure if this is a good thing or a bad one, if you’re honest with yourself. No monsters have come to bother you; they all have their own lives and troubles to worry about, and none of them have noticed the human curled up in a corner of their tall white city. You don’t want their concern—you don’t know what you’d do with it if you got it—but really, the only way this is any better than being at home is that you can at least avoid confusing the present day with your sickness in the past.

Does it matter, really? The true nature of your new ailment may yet be a mystery, but the blood loss you’ve sustained over the past several days is not good. You don’t need Toriel or Gaster to tell you so to understand that. If things go on like this, you _will_ die. There’s no question of that.

You would deserve it if you did. You have no right to complain about—any of this. But fear and resentment boil up in you nonetheless. You don’t want this.

_You don’t want this._

The soft sound of footsteps on the cobbled road reaches your ears, but you dismiss it. Everyone who’s passed by you has given you your space. The people of New Home know you mainly from a distance, but they are nonetheless familiar enough with you to leave you be when they know that’s what you want.

“You’re Chara, right?”

It’s a voice you don’t know: Young, but selfsure. You raise your head, already opening your mouth to tell whoever it is to go away.

And you lock eyes with the human child and freeze.

They draw back a half step at what’s no doubt sheer terror on your face, but instead of turning to leave, they get down on their knees in front of you. “It’s all right, I’m not here to hurt you…”

You can’t move. You can’t speak, you can’t think, you can’t breathe. You’ve got to—you’ve got to run, you’ve got to get to safety. But you have your back to the wall in an alley, the human is blocking your only escape, and your breath is still uneven from running down here, your traitor knees reduced to vaguely burning jelly. Stupid, stupid. You really have grown soft.

The distant sound of laughter filters through the ringing in your ears. But that doesn’t make any sense, because—the human’s mouth isn’t moving. Even so, the laughter raises in volume and in pitch. It’s so hard to breathe. You feel like you’re sinking into the stone. That’s—that’s fine with you. If you sink into the earth, then the human won’t be able to get you.

…Oh.

The laughter’s coming from you.

Your legs sting, distantly. It’s annoying. You bury your face in your thighs and rock. At least if you curl up and protect your soft parts, maybe you can get out of this without getting hurt too badly.

Cold sensation on your hand. The pain in your right leg disappears. Soft squeeze.

Then:

“Seven,” says a voice.

Your brain latches onto that, because you’ve worked hard to train it to. With Asriel, with Asgore, with Toriel, with the monsters who visit them most too.

“Six,” the voice goes on. It’s the right rhythm and everything. “Five. Four. Three. Two. One. Now breathe in. One. Two. Three.”

Shaking, choking on your own tears and snot, you struggle to follow along with the counting. Now that you aren’t being overwhelmed with too much oxygen, your head clears a little.

You try to uncurl some. There’s someone holding your hand. It’s the human. They’re sitting next to you now, still counting down from and then back up to seven. You don’t understand.

“Why,” you croak.

“Dr. Gaster does this for me when I have bad days too,” they say. “He said the king and queen taught him to do it because it’s what they use for you. I’m sorry I scared you. I know you don’t like humans very much. I’m not mad, ‘cause I understand.” They watch you watching them for a while. “Do you want me to let go?” they ask after a while.

You look down at their hand in yours. Their fingers are pale from how hard you’re clutching them. Embarrassing. Baffling. You make an effort to loosen your grip. You’ve left bright pink crescent moon marks in the back of their hand.

They wiggle their fingers a little, but don’t try to pull away from you.

You don’t understand.

“I’m here to help you,” they say.

“What,” is all you can come up with.

“I live with Dr. Gaster,” they say, like _duh._ “So I hear some about what’s going on with your family. You’ve been bleeding for the past couple days, right?”

This is enough to make you sit upright and drop their hand. Enough for you to feel your whole face flush, too. Oh _god._ How many people know about this? About—how gross and awful and pathetic—

“I know why that’s happening,” the human goes on, and your train of thought crashes spectacularly.

“You—what?”

“Yeah,” they say, and smile a little. You don’t sense any hostility from them, so are they—trying to encourage you? Comfort you? You don’t understand. You _really_ don’t understand. “It’s totally normal. You’re not bleeding ‘cause you’re hurt on the inside or anything.”

“I—how,” you stutter. “How is that possible.”

“You’re just on your period,” they say. “That’s all.”

“My—what. What does that even mean.”

They cross their legs and lean forward, propping their face in their hands. “Humans who can get pregnant have this happen when they start growing up,” they go on. “Your insides are shedding so that they’ll be ready if you wind up having a baby. It’s pretty gross, but it’s normal. There’s nothing wrong with you.”

You just stare blankly at them. This sounds—too convenient to be true.

“I’ve never heard of anything like that,” you say.

They nod. “I thought maybe that was why. I don’t think this happens with monsters, so if nobody taught you while you lived on the surface…” They shrug. “My mom explained it to me when it started happening to my big brother, or else I wouldn’t know either. It’s not like they ever said anything about it in school. But, like, this will happen for a little less than a week every month until you’re too old to have babies. I’ll get this too, when I’m older.”

There’s just something about the self-assured way they say it that makes you want to believe them, even though you ought to know better. But. You have—memories, vague ones, that seem to corroborate what they’re telling you. The term “period” is something you’ve definitely heard before, though the context may escape you. It’s just so far away that it seems like—a different life.

“It’ll stop in a couple of days,” the other human goes on, earnest. “Then you’ll know I’m right. There’s stuff that humans use to make it easier and less messy, like, pads for your underwear and stuff. I’m sure if we talk to the monsters they’ll help us figure that out.”

You just—stare at them, for a long while. They smile at you.

“I’m glad you’re calmer now,” they say. “I’m glad I found you at all. They said you’d be in town somewhere, so I figured this was my only chance to talk to you.”

“Why—come after me first,” you manage.

The human tilts their head. “Because it’s your body,” they tell you, like it’s obvious. “You ought to know first, right? Not knowing what’s going to happen to you’s… really scary.”

There’s just—something about the way they say it. You look at them— _really_ look at them.

They’re younger than you, probably. Definitely smaller. Their hair’s orangey red and tied with a red ribbon, their eyes are some pale color that’s hard to distinguish in the shadow of the buildings, their skin’s a lot lighter than yours and their face is freckly. They wear a neat skirt and a striped blouse. One of their sneakers is coming untied.

“You’re weird,” you blurt out.

They frown at you. “Huh?”

“Because you’re—you’re human,” you say. “Humans aren’t this nice. Either you’re just really good at faking it, or you’re almost…”

“Almost…?” they prompt, tilting their head like they’re actually interested.

“Almost like a monster,” you finish, faltering.

This time they sit up. Their mouth drops open, and they start to blink their eyes rapidly.

“Wow,” they say, and again: “Wow. Um. That’s—that’s the nicest thing I’ve heard from a human in a long, long time.”

It occurs to you, all of a sudden, to wonder how this human ended up here.

Someone found them in the Ruins, so. They came here through the same hole you tripped and fell down like a colossal _idiot,_ since only you could ever manage to screw up trying to jump to your death that badly. But to fall down that hole, they had to have climbed the mountain first. The mountain that everybody knows no one comes home from. The mountain you climbed to disappear.

And they’re—you think they’re around the same age you were, when you climbed Mt. Ebott. You were ten.

You were only ten.

Deep breath. Open your mouth, but the words you want just don’t take shape even in your mind, so instead you say, “What’s your name.”

They blink at you once. Blink at you a second time.

“I’m Prase,” they say, and then they break into an enormous grin and it’s your turn to blink. “I’ve been wanting to meet you for a long time, Chara. It’s nice to find someone else who… gets it, you know?”

“You’ve been here for a while,” you point out to them.

Prase shrugs. “I know you don’t like humans. I was just waiting for a good opportunity.”

You smile a little despite yourself. “You’re, uh, pretty patient, huh?”

They grin even wider. “That’s what people tell me. Anyhow, it’s nice to meet you.”

Prase sticks their hand out towards you, and you flinch away on reflex, breath hitching in your lungs, heart going off like a firework display. They yank their hand back the next minute.

“Sorry,” they say. “I didn’t mean to scare you, I wasn’t thinking.”

You rub your arms to try to quell your shakes. “Maybe slower next time,” you mumble, and they nod, serious-faced.

“Um,” they say. “We should go back to the castle, maybe? I went straight to find you first, I don’t think they even know where I am. We should explain stuff to them.”

 _“You_ can explain stuff to them, because I don’t really get it yet either,” you correct. “But I guess so.” And you try to gather your legs up under you to push off the ground, but your knees sort of shiver and they get that awful liquid feeling that tells you standing without help is a Bad idea. You sigh.

“Do you need help?” Prase asks, peering at you.

“Yes. No. I have… I’m,” and you gesture vaguely at yourself, “messed up on the inside, but I don’t think you touching me is a good idea. I have someone I can call though.”

Prase is making a face like they’re put out, but they still listen to you quietly.

“Okay,” they say when you’re through talking, and they stretch their legs out in front of them and take—something long and plastic out of their skirt pocket to nibble on the tip. It’s a toy kitchen knife, you think, the kind that comes in old-fashioned playsets. It still makes you want a real one to look at it, so you just turn your head away as you take your even-more-old-fashioned phone out of your pocket. This thing doesn’t even have speed dial; you have to enter Asriel’s number by hand.

You bring your knees up to your chest and swing them side to side as you press your ear to the receiver. It hurts your back less to curl up like this, and your knees are fine as long as you don’t try to put any weight on them.

“Chara?”

The tension drains out of you as soon as you hear Asriel’s voice. You’re probably smiling, even. He’s dangerous. You don’t think he even understands how dangerous he really is.

“Chara, are you okay?”

“Yeah,” you say. “More or less. I’m ready to go back home, I just—will you come get me?”

Rustling noises from the other end. “Okay. I’ll be right there. Will you give me directions while I go?”

“Sure,” you reply. “I’ll stay on the line.”

You’re tired. Very. Even if it might not actually be lethal, the blood loss has left you weak, and despite their being the least-humanish human you’ve ever met in all your fourteen years of life, talking to Prase has worn you right out.

But this is still preferable to the kinds of tired you usually are, so: Well.

You’ll take what you can get.

**Author's Note:**

> this got fanart from rainglazed ([chara and asriel](http://rainglazed.tumblr.com/post/135316235335/), [prase](http://rainglazed.tumblr.com/post/135708789790)), [eristastic](http://eristastic.tumblr.com/post/135498316532), [doreenchartreuse](http://doreenchartreuse.tumblr.com/post/136348453631), and [lemika96](http://lemika96.tumblr.com/post/141460982354/)!! thank you!!


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